Review: They’re board out of their minds in Bones Brigade

Film Review: Bones Brigade (3 stars)

These days, the ominous rattle of a skateboarder rounding a corner and whirring past is so routine, most of us don’t blink — even as we’re thrown aside by a couple of easy riders in ninth grade. The bandana-bound locks, loud T-shirts and scuffed DCs are as familiar as the delicate period of adolescence they’ve come to represent. But as skateboarding legend Stacy Peralta reminds us in the documentary Bones Brigade: An Autobiography — a follow-up to his award-winning Dogtown and Z-Boys — the sport has always stood for a lot more than the slacker aesthetic it’s, perhaps unfairly, branded with.

Peralta was one of the most successful members of California’s Zephyr Team, or Z-Boys — the 1970s skateboard pioneers often credited with reviving the sport through innovative aerial and sliding moves that simulated the surfing style of the region. Although the team’s celebrity faded by the late ’70s, Peralta went on to start his own company, from which a dedicated battalion of wunderkinds called the Bones Brigade would turn skateboarding into a household activity.

The team of gangly misfits included Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Tommy Guerrero, Lance Mountain and Rodney Mullen — most still memorizing high school locker codes when they were selected by Peralta. The boys picked up almost exactly where Dogtown and Z-Boys left off in the early 1980s, when skateboarding — still in its own awkward adolescence — was maturing as a sport. Not quite taken seriously, but not entirely neglected either, it wasn’t until the Bones Brigade that the sport skyrocketed.

Piralta’s young crew was incredibly different from the Z-boys. For starters, they were tricks-oriented, and spent countless hours perfecting techniques like the Ollie and McTwist — signature moves that would serve as foundations for generations of skateboarders after them. Empty swimming pools were replaced with fancy half-pipes and ramps, and these moves literally took the sport to new heights. The Brigade also didn’t shy away from commercializing its talent. Tony Hawk — who once cashed in 85 cents for the sale of one of his skateboards — was raking in more than $20,000 per month when he graduated. Before long, the group of six — no longer skater boys but bona fide athletes — were jet-setting around the world for competitions and gracing magazine covers.

Throughout Bones Brigade, you’re kind of waiting for the other beat-up Converse to drop — these days, a group of young dudes with fame and an unlimited cash flow can only mean rehab and unflattering mug shots — but it never really does. Hawk and company were the Boy Scouts of skateboarding, and got their kicks through hard work and dedication to the sport. It wasn’t easy: Hawk and Mullen talk at length about the stress of competitions, getting bullied by skaters from other companies and pressure from family to get a “real job.” But with all this, Peralta shows us another side to skating: these weren’t dead-beat teenagers skipping class and screwing around; his boys were diligent, talented businessmen who left a real legacy.

Bones Brigade doesn’t tell us much about the climate for skateboarding outside the team’s success, and as such, there’s no real tension. Other companies are name-dropped, but the rivalries between them aren’t fully explored — a dimension this story could have benefited from. But for those who aren’t skateboard-savvy, Bones makes this curious world suddenly accessible. Who knows, maybe next time you’re flung aside by a brazen boarder, you might feel a twinge of new-found respect as you dust yourself off.

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